


The Future Is A Promise

by DianaSolaris



Category: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/M, First Kiss, Flirting, Sweet, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 14:02:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14916713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DianaSolaris/pseuds/DianaSolaris
Summary: The game isn't done screwing up Alex Vreeke's life yet; at the end of the game, it dumps him back in Freak House...in 2016. It isn't long before he runs into Bethany Walker again, though, and has to figure out what his future is going to hold.Also, what on earth is a smartphone?





	The Future Is A Promise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jedibuttercup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/gifts).



> I hope you like this! It's my very first fic for Jumanji, and I had a blast. Alex is one of my favourite characters, and Bethany is so sweet and yet so - so very BETHANY.

When Alex Vreeke appears at Freak House, still sixteen years old, still wearing the same battered tank top and the same ripped jeans, trying to adjust to a body that feels wrong and ill-fitting in strange places, he isn’t sure what to expect. He doesn’t know what to say.

When his father appears, though, old and crooked and tired - Alex can’t keep it together. He thought he was only gone for six months. Six months. That was all.

He bursts into messy tears. Tears that don’t stop when the old man starts to ask him who he thinks he is, playing games like this with his head - profiting off of a tragedy -

He doesn’t even see the punch coming through his blurred vision. He can’t blame his dad for it, but it doesn’t stop it from hurting. His dad’s never laid a hand on him, not even when Alex snapped off the pickups of his dad’s favourite guitar, or lost one of the matched set of his favourite drumsticks. And now he knows what it feels like.

“Get lost,” Mr. Vreeke orders. Alex just nods and does so, or at least as far as the open gate of Freak House. He looks up at the streetlights, so much clearer and brighter than they used to be. The bulb in the one outside of his window got replaced, that’s for sure. He remembers it always used to flicker, and a few months before -  _ before.  _ It had gone out completely.

Alex Vreeke looks down at the body he hasn’t lived in for (twenty years) six months, and wonders what lesson he’s supposed to learn, trapped out of time, out of sync, ripping back into a song that just kept playing on and on while he was gone. If there’s a lesson at all.

 

\----

 

When Alex was twelve years old, his dad brought home an album by Nirvana. “They’ll be the next big thing, just you wait and see-” And they were. They weren’t metal, but they were honest, and they became history.

Right now, though, Alex isn’t thinking about any of their radio songs. He’s thinking about the song about living under a bridge as he stares up at an underpass that didn’t used to be there.  _ And I’m living off of grass, and the drippings from the ceiling - _

“This is stupid,” he grumbles. At least it isn’t cold out.

If he had the slightest -  _ slightest  _ \- clue where the others were, or what they looked like, or how to find them, he’d start there. But the game, the stupid, capricious, inconsistent, rule-less game had spat him out in the street outside of Freak House. The  _ Vreeke  _ House. Not even in his own bedroom. 

“Something in the way,” he hums to himself, “mmmhmmm…”

Eventually, he falls asleep. He dreams about mosquitoes, and black mambas, and remembering how to fly whatever he could get his hands on. Hands made for helicopters, instead of guitar strings. 

 

\----

“I can’t believe it. We finally got all the stupid work done and then he makes us drag the magazines out  _ here? _ ”

“It’s supposed to build  _ character,  _ Bethany.”

“It’s building my  _ biceps.  _ I know being strong has its benefits, but have you ever seen an Instagram model with  _ biceps? _ ”

“I think you’d look hot with biceps.”

“Nobody  _ asked  _ you, Fridge. Can’t you just drag this on your own?”

“There’s one of me, and five boxes. You’re lucky you’re getting away with me carrying two.”

Alex thinks he’s still dreaming at first. The voices are wrong, but he can’t help but chuckle. It certainly  _ sounds  _ like them.

“Just be careful, guys. If we missed any staples and then we get them in our hands, there’s a high risk factor for tetanus, and -”

There’s a collective groan, and Alex chuckles some more - then lets out a loud ‘oof’ as one of the boxes lands squarely on his stomach. He sits up with a yell he didn’t plan, and all four of the kids jump back with an even louder squeal.

“OH GOD CRAZY HOMELESS PERSON!”

“You warned us about  _ tetanus  _ and not  _ crazy homeless people? _ ”

“I try to only be scared of rational things!”

“That’s even MORE terrifying!”

Alex tosses the box of magazines off him, and clutches his stomach with a groan. “Did you just  _ drop a box  _ on me?”

The blonde girl staring at him in horror tosses her hair with a huff. “I didn’t think there’d be anybody  _ sleeping  _ there!”

Alex glances up at her. He doesn’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the guarded way she’s staring at him. Maybe it’s the names flying around - he hasn’t even properly checked the year to be sure yet, and he knows there must be hundreds of Bethanys -

He glances down at her purse. “...Is that a Metallica CD?”

“Yes,” she snaps. “Why?”

“You  _ actually  _ took my recommendation?”

Her jaw snaps open. “... _ Alex? _ ”

“Wait -” The skinny guy behind her takes a nervous step forward. “Uh. Alex, like…”

Alex wrestles to his feet, dusting off his jeans and trying to look a little less like he spent the night off the bridge. He’s taller than Bethany now, he realizes, by a good head and a half. He’d forgotten what it was like to be  _ tall.  _ “...Seaplane McDonough. Reporting for duty.” He smiles at Spencer. “You’re Spencer, right?”

“You’re  _ taller than me. _ ”

“Fridge?”

The big guy behind them nods, still looking a little stunned. “Dude, you’re taller than  _ me. _ ”

“Six foot two,” he grins. Then he spots Martha, hiding behind Fridge still with a box of magazines in her hands. “...Hey, Ruby.”

“ _ Martha, _ ” she hisses.

“Martha.”

She peers out from behind Fridge. “...You’re not supposed to be here,” she says with a sadness that he can hear all too clearly. She’s the smart one. She’s the one who’s put it all together already.

“I know,” he murmurs. And he watches it dawn on everybody else’s face too. What it means that Alex Vreeke - the missing boy from twenty years ago - is here instead, sixteen years old, and doomed to stay missing. 

It’s Bethany, bless her, who snaps into action. “Well, bridges aren’t any good for you. Do you  _ know  _ what that does to your back, let alone your respiratory system?”

Spencer nods solemnly. “She’s right, you know. There’s horrible things out here. Did you know you can get E. coli from bird poop? And there’s vermin, and roaches, and-”

“Crazy homeless people?” Alex can’t help but add wryly.

“Uh. Sorry,” Spencer mumbles. “Instinct, you know, and -”

Bethany makes the decision before anybody else can get over themselves enough to say anything actually useful. She grabs Alex’s hand (and she’s so warm - here in the real world, things  _ feel  _ different than they did in the game and he didn’t know he missed it until he got it back) and says with a decisive flip of her hair, “I’ve got a couch. And you’ve missed, like, twenty years of good movies.”

“Oh. Um - sure.”

“Do you like pizza?”

“I’m pretty sure everybody does. Also, I think I’d eat anything you put in front of me at this point.”

“Great!” And she flashes pearly white teeth at him, turning on her charm in a way that carries over surprisingly well between bodies - “It’s a date.”

Alex doesn’t have a good response to that that’s  _ any  _ kind of appropriate, so he just lets her guide him down the street. He does, however, catch Fridge’s comment. “I think I just watched a bird of prey in action.”

“Don’t be mean!”

“I wasn’t! I’m jealous!”

“Pfft. As if.”

 

\----

 

It’s funny, what little things have changed. Big things, too. TVs look different. Video-games look different.

Fridges, on the other hand, look just the same, even if it’s a little more chrome and has a water dispenser on the front.

“You look so lost,” Bethany teases. 

“I can’t tell how much of me being weirded out right now is because it’s the future, or because I’m in a girl’s house.”

“...Oh dear,” she sighs, pressing some buttons on her phone. “Don’t tell me you’ve  _ never  _ been on a date.”

“No, no, I’ve been on dates. But be honest. How many parents do you think I’ve met?”

She raises an eyebrow, then looks him up and down. “That depends. Do you wear anything  _ other  _ than the ratty Metallica tank-top?”

“I have Pink Floyd ones too! And Slayer.”

Bethany closes her eyes. “...You  _ so  _ need a makeover.”

“What I need are those aviator sunglasses back. I miss those.”

“You also need a shower. Pizza’ll be here in -” she checks her phone. “Twenty minutes.”

“But...you didn't order it.”

She waggles her phone at him with a laugh. ‘Yeah, I did.”

“ _ Whaaaat. _ ”

“Go shower! I’ll introduce you to the world of smartphones and Instagram after. Oh, you’ll  _ looove  _ Twitter-”

Alex has his doubts, but honestly, if Bethany keeps smiling at him like that, he’ll believe anything she says.

 

\---

 

He’s staying in Bethany’s guest room, he discovers after his shower; he learns this because Bethany has fluffed the pillows and laid out a change of clothes, and propped up a handwritten note that says “PIZZA FOR BOYS IN CUTE CLOTHES!”

It’s the little curlicues on either side that make it, he thinks with a chuckle. Dammit. He  _ really  _ likes her. His dad would have loved her -

He’s not going to think about his dad right now.

Then he picks up the folded shirt, and it’s like every piece of the past has come back to hit him in the face again. “B-Bethany?” he asks.

“Yeah?” she calls from the other room.

He decides not to ask. He can’t think of a lot of reasons why Bethany would have a Megadeth shirt in what is - well, only  _ roughly  _ his size. In fact, he realizes with a warm rush of emotion, it’s a lot closer to Seaplane McDonough’s size than his. 

The jeans are close enough. 

He walks out of the room, and Bethany is setting up the pizza on the table, but he doesn’t miss the pink flush on her face. “...Megadeth, huh?”

“I don’t know  _ what  _ you’re talking about.”

“It’s a little small.”

“It’s Spencer’s,” she lies glibly.

“I’ve  _ met  _ Spencer. He probably thinks listening to metal will get him possessed.”

Bethany can’t help it - she snorts, covering her face with her hand. “Oh  _ noooo… _ ”

“You know I’m right.” He sits down next to her, then as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, lifts a hand to her cheek. “...You actually missed me.”

She pouts. “Maybe.”

“You thought I’d come out of the game with you.”

Her eyes dip down. “Ohhh, that was a  _ terrible  _ thing to wish, wasn’t it? If that game had any sense - if I had any sense - it would have sent you home.”

Alex sighs. “It did.”

“It - oh, oh  _ no- _ ”

He shrugs. “Hey, show me this - smartphone thing. What makes it smart?”

Bethany manages a smile. “Well, for one, I can access the internet.”

“The - what? Isn’t that a nerd thing?”

“Oh. My. God.”

 

\---

 

He stares up at the ceiling, and the fan moves around and around, and when he falls asleep, he thinks he can hear a plane’s engine in the distance. Then there’s a bite on his shoulder, and another, and another, and he can feel himself dying -  _ I only have one life now, this is it, this is it, this is it - _

“Alex?”

The touch on his shoulder makes him flinch, and he hurtles awake, suddenly horribly aware of the fact that he can’t be caught sleeping, not here, not with Van Pelt on the hunt -

Bethany stares down at him, blue eyes reflecting the streetlights from outside. There’s something so disorienting about seeing her like this; the others he can see their game selves in much more easily, but Bethany he has to depend on the angle of her head, the sound of her voice. He hadn’t expected her to be so damn  _ beautiful.  _ It makes it so much harder for him to ignore the feelings he’d already had. 

Then he realizes what she’s wearing - a sheer nightgown, and he glances down to see legs covered in silk garter -

“O-oh.” His nightmare is still hanging around his head like cobwebs, but most of it burns away in the sudden rush of blood to his cheeks and - uh - elsewhere.

Bethany averts her eyes with an little impish grin. “If I know how to do anything it’s dress the part.”

“...Uh.”

“You’re staring,” she says with a giggle.

“I’m trying to figure out if I’m still dreaming. Although this is definitely better. Hi.”

“Hi.”

He blinks, trying to clear his head. “Um. I - does - does this mean you weren’t just -”

“Just what?” She cocks her head, blonde waves falling onto the curve of her breasts.

“I wasn’t sure if you were just flirting for fun, or…”

She scoffs. “ _ Boys.”  _ She actually does sound a little hurt. “Listen, Alex…” She slides into bed next to him, body warm against him, and runs a hand through his hair. “I like you. I like you a lot. I -” She bites her lip. “I don’t usually  _ like  _ boys like this. I flirt, I tease, I have fun, but…” 

“But what?” 

She’s nervous, he realizes. He can feel her heartbeat through her chest. “I care if you like me back. I  _ want  _ you to like me back.” Then, quiet, a little desperate, “Do you?”

“Of course I do. I -” He laughs without really meaning to. “You talked me back into facing my fears, you saved my life  _ and  _ you listened to metal after I told you about it. What’s not to love?”

She shrugs off the question, which makes him worry. But there’s a smile on her face anyway, and so he leans in and kisses her, brushes his thumb over her soft chin, and when he pulls away, there’s a glimmer of starlight in her eyes.

“Can I stay with you tonight?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

“Is it okay if-” she asks nervously.

“Of course. I’ll tell you a secret,” he says, curling into her and wrapping his arms around her. “I’ve never gone all the way. So it doesn’t matter.”

“You haven’t?”

“I’m a metalhead. Doesn’t mean I’m good with girls.”

She laughs - then grinds her butt back into him. “Part of you seems to disagree.”

“Okay,  _ okay,  _ if you’re  _ going  _ to tease me-”

“It comes naturally.”

He kisses her cheek. “Sleep.”

When she finally does fall asleep, he watches over her for a little while longer, then stares out of the window. There’s a whole future out there he doesn’t understand, and he’s not even sure if there’s a place for him.

But he supposes it’s time to find out. 


End file.
